SAMUELSON: Trend toward part-time jobs shows economy's weakness

Just when you thought that America's labor market was improving, with employment gains averaging about 200,000 a month, comes Mort Zuckerman, real estate magnate and chairman of U.S. News & World Report, throwing cold water on any optimism.

The truth, writes Zuckerman in The Wall Street Journal, is that, according to the Labor Department's household survey, almost three-quarters of new jobs in 2013 have been part time. These need to be discounted in judging the economy's strength, argues Zuckerman.

"At this stage of an expansion you would expect the number of part-time jobs to be declining, as companies would be doing more full-time hiring," he writes. "Not this time. In the long misery of this post-recession period, we have an extraordinary situation: Americans by the millions are in part-time work because there are no other employment opportunities."

Ugh. To Zuckerman, work is increasingly catch as catch can, with firms relying more "on independent contractors and part-time, temporary and seasonal employees." He also blames the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), which has been criticized as discouraging full-time hiring. Companies with fewer than 50 full-time workers don't have to provide health insurance; nor are part-time employees (defined as less than 30 hours a week) entitled to company coverage. These are powerful deterrents to adding full-time workers.

On some counts, Zuckerman's critique is overwrought.

For starters, it belittles genuine job progress. Gains since the recession's trough in 2009, though inadequate, are still substantial. "Companies (now) seem to be holding on to their employees," says economist Beth Ann Bovino of Standard & Poor's. Initial weekly unemployment claims peaked at about 650,000; now they're about half that, 334,000 in a recent week, she says. The unemployment rate has dropped from 10 percent in October 2009 to 7.6 percent.

Nor is there much evidence that, in the recovery, part-time workers have represented a disproportionate share of new jobs. Economist Scott Anderson of the Bank of the West analyzed employment gains since January 2009 and found that in June part-time jobs accounted for 19.5 percent of total employment, "exactly the average share ... since January 2009." Part-time jobs sometimes surge for a few months, he noted, but then the rapid gains have been reversed.

Finally, Zuckerman doesn't acknowledge that most part-time jobs are desired by workers. Of the 27 million part-time workers in June, slightly more than 19 million were voluntary: students splitting jobs and studies; retirees wanting extra income or human contact; and parents juggling the demands of jobs and child-rearing.

Still, the core of Zuckerman's argument stands. This recovery, compared to its post-World War II predecessors, has been exceptionally weak. The number of part-time workers who would like full-time jobs (defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as 35 hours a week or more) has dropped very slowly. In May 2009, it peaked at 9.1 million; as of last month, it was 8.2 million. Moreover, the level was almost twice as high as before the recession - 4.2 million in December 2006. As Zuckerman argues, this suggests many companies are quietly shifting employment practices.

Firms seek to minimize fixed labor costs by using contractors, "temps" and part-timers. Obamacare intensifies the pressures, because of the incentives against hiring full-time workers.

Up to a point, part-time jobs reflect the flexibility of the U.S. economy - but we are well beyond that point. They increasingly signify weakness.

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SAMUELSON: Trend toward part-time jobs shows economy's weakness

Just when you thought that America's labor market was improving, with employment gains averaging about 200,000 a month, comes Mort Zuckerman, real estate magnate and chairman of U.S. News & World

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